Red Hart
by Celandine Brandybuck
Summary: Peter seeks advice during the battles against the northern Giants, and grants his advisor a boon.


For realpestilence, who gave me the bunny.

For those who need to be informed in advance, please be aware that there is non-explicit male-male sexual content in this story.

* * *

In those days the Giants attacked Narnia on her northern frontier, so that those who lived there were in peril of their lives; and therefore they sent word to the High King at Cair Paravel and begged him to come in force to preserve them and their homes.

And High King Peter listened to the counsel of such of his counsellors as were then present, to wit: the Beaver and the Leopard and Pholos the Centaur, and he spoke also with his sister the Queen Lucy (for his other sister the Queen Susan and his brother the King Edmund and the Faun Tumnus and many others were at that time in Calormen); and then summoned Peter a great host of the Narnians to go and cross Ettinsmoor and fall hardily upon the Giants.

Talking Beasts of all kinds he summoned, great Cats and Badgers, Horses and Owls, Dogs and Eagles and every other creature that wished to fight; and as well he called the Dwarfs and Centaurs, Fauns and Satyrs and other folk, and he sent word too to those Men who had commended themselves to him from Archenland and the Lone Isles and elsewhere, and whom he had settled in places scattered throughout the land. And many hundreds came, for all true Narnians of every race wished to ensure its security and that of their fellow denizens.

The host gathered below the castle, and great was the pomp and display at first, but Peter bade them put away the silken banners and gaudy tents, saying, "Swift and secret must we march to fall upon our enemies when they least expect it." And he ordered wains to be loaded with food and spare arms and other supplies that might be needful, and they made haste to the north, leaving behind Queen Lucy to rule at Cair Paravel and keep it safe.

Now though Peter had slain the great Wolf Maugrim, and done battle against the army of Jadis the White Witch, yet still he had little knowledge of tactics and strategy save what he had read in the great library at Cair Paravel. Thus he called for those with greater experience and consulted with them. Among them was the fourth son of a noble of Archenland, a young lord called Lhun, who had now been settled in Narnia some seven years, since he was a youth of nineteen.

This Lhun had fought in skirmishes against the warriors of the Tisroc of Calormen, and, as his holding was in the north and west of Narnia, he had some experience against the Giants there as well. Thus it was he to whom Peter turned most often when deciding how best to set out his forces, whether it was to march or to fight.

The advice Lhun to his king gave proved good. The Narnian army defeated the giants in a great battle, and the giants sued for peace and paid indemnity, and swore an oath not to cross the border into Narnia again for a hundred years.

With this was Peter well content, and he went to Lhun and asked if he desired any boon in thanks for his wise counsel and valiant fighting in battle.

Lhun looked at King Peter, and he trembled, for the boon that he wished was one that he dared not request.

Seeing Lhun hesitant, Peter assured him that he need have no fear of making petition for whatever lay in his heart, though Peter might find himself unable to grant what was asked.

Then Lhun plucked up his courage and said, "My Lord, I wish but to spend a single night with you as your lover, for you are fair and noble and I love and esteem you greatly."

Upon hearing this, Peter was troubled, and he bade Lhun wait for two days while he considered his answer. And Lhun waited as he was bidden, though he scarcely slept or ate, and haggard indeed he looked when Peter summoned him once more.

"Bold was your request, my lord, and for that I cannot but honour you. I must confess myself flattered, as well, though my natural inclinations do not lie in the direction. Nevertheless I shall grant you this boon, with two conditions: that it be but the one night, and that no other, be he Man or Beast or any other race, ever come to know of this. For the favours of the King must not be held to be cheap."

To this Lhun assented, and when the host had returned to Cair Paravel to celebrate the victory, Lhun travelled there too, to claim his promised boon.

The night they spent together was more to Peter's liking than he had expected, though not so much so as to persuade him to prefer men in future. In the morning he thanked Lhun gravely for the experience, and gave him a gold armlet with the sign of the Lion upon it, for his service to Narnia, and a ring with a great ruby carved in likeness of a stag, for the esteem in which the High King held him; and from that day forth Lhun ever bore a red hart as his sigil.


End file.
